34 Answers

Looks like a topography map. It is used by hikers for navigation, it is used by civil engineers for designing drainage systems and many other things, it is used by hydrologists when modeling groundwater systems, and many other things….they are quite useful! Could easily have been used by military to design a combat plan. You can tell what the elevation gain is over any distance by looking at the map – it basically maps out terrain.

It is a topographical or topo map. The lines (called contour lines) indicate the relative heights of things—if you look their should be a key that tells you the relative spacing of the contour lines (e.g., 10 foot lines means that a line is ten feet in elevation above the line to one side and 10 feet lower than the line on the other side). Knowing if the ground goes up or down takes a little practice and there are features that will give you some clues. For example, if you see concentric circles, it is either a hill or a hole.

Your pic number 4 shows the declination of the map. That is how you would need to set the back of your compass to be able to use it with the map. It looks like about 5 degrees from the picture (which would be normal for the eastern US).

Your pic number 5 actually has some good information to help you read the map. There is something marked as Smyth Hill. If you follow the line of type that says Smyth Hill in black off to the right, you will see writing in brown that says 350. It means that the bold brown line it intersects marks a spot that is 350 feet above sea level. You can follow that line (or walk it in real life) and all the land under that line would be that height.

The age of the map is curious and it might be interesting to see how many of the features noted are still there and how many are long gone . . .

Thank you, @Kayak8, that’s some interesting information. I have studied vintage ephemera and military history for some time, and I’d probably date this map from between the late 30’s and late 40’s based on the fonts and art designs. I posted this same question on an army web forum to see if any of those guys from Fort Benning may know anything about the actual landscape.

One of the maps says it is for use with ROTC training manuals, so there is probably a manual around someplace that has a bunch of activities that relate back to the map (e.g., find a “saddle” on this map or find a “mine” on the map). Likely it was for training folks how to use a map like this with a compass.

The folks who would have been trained on how to use the map (along with the protractors etc) would not have had to be AT Fort Benning to learn how to use the tools (intellectually). From my desk here in Ohio, I could calculate the distance between two points, make decisions about how to flank another group of soldiers, etc.

@Kayak8 and @Tropical_Willie, I just looked up some of the road names on the map on Google maps, and they line up perfectly and are within a half mile of Fort Benning. Not much has changed, but there is now a mall in what would be the bottom left corner of my map. This is pretty cool!

It’s a map. It can be used for anything someone wants to use it for. It can be used for geocaching, or training a soldier, or navigating through the wilds, or getting to Fort Benning or for tinder for a fire, or toilet paper.

Maps have multiple purposes. This one was made by the USGS and then adapted for the military by adding a little bit of text. No big whoop.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Do these maps have the nine-digit location codes on them? Just curious, as I don’t remember whether those we pre- or post WW2. You would find your location or the targets location and call in the nine digits to report position or call in an air or artillery strike.

There aren’t any 9-digit codes on the map. Every hill is labeled with a name, and all of the wooded areas are named after a particular infantry unit (i.e. 125th Infantry Woods, 148th Infantry Woods). There are little circles that are labeled B.M. 430 and stuff like that (B.M. followed by a number).